Are Corporations People?

Video: The Supreme Court has granted private for-profit corporations the right to contribute unlimited funds to political campaigns. What can citizens do to protect democracy?

posted Jan 21, 2010

Are corporations people? What does it mean for democracy if they are afforded the same rights as people? In response to the Supreme Court finding in Citizens United v. Federal Elections Commission, a grassroots campaign has proposed a constitutional amendment to protect the rights of citizens.

"American citizens have repeatedly amended the Constitution to defend democracy when the Supreme Court acts in collusion with democracy's enemies, whether they are slavemasters, states imposing poll taxes on voters, or the opponents of woman suffrage. Today, the Court has enthroned corporations, permitting them not only all kinds of special economic rights but now, amazingly, moving to grant them the same political rights as the people. this is a moment of high danger for democracy so we must act quickly to spell out in the Constitution what the people have always understood: that corporations do not enjoy the political and free speech rights that belong to the people of the United States."; -Professor Jamie Raskin, constitutional law expert at American University's Washington College of Law and Maryland state senator

freespeechforpeople.org is a campaign sponsored by Voter Action (voteraction.org), Public Citizen (citizen.org), the Center for Corporate Policy (corporatepolicy.org), and American Independent Business Alliance (amiba.net)
to restore the First Amendment's free speech guarantees for the people,
and to preserve and promote democracy and self-government.